


drape your wrists over the steering wheel

by admlynch



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam-Centric, Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Adam, POV Second Person, Vignette, dw this isn't as angsty as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 08:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10433466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admlynch/pseuds/admlynch
Summary: You have never driven this car before. You know it, intimately because you’ve sat in the passenger seat a thousand times, but you’ve never driven it yourself. No- that’s not true. You remember, once, whirling around a parking lot, drumming up clouds of dust the same color as your hair, as he cursed at you from the passenger seat, vicious smile sharp as a knife.---or: adam drives the bmw for the first time since the stick shift lesson in trb, and hyperventilates about his feelings for 700 words





	

You have never driven this car before. You know it, intimately because you’ve sat in the passenger seat a thousand times, but you’ve never driven it yourself. No- that’s not true. You remember, once, whirling around a parking lot, drumming up clouds of dust the same color as your hair, as he cursed at you from the passenger seat, vicious smile sharp as a knife. Looking back, that moment feels far away and familiar like a favorite sweater. It was fun. You remember smiling- which is a rarity in your life, even now. But it’s gotten easier. You remember thinking  _ this is what Ronan Lynch looks like when he’s happy.  _

 

You haven’t driven the car since, because you kept stalling it. It’s been over a year, though, now, and you can manage to drive a stick shift without any trouble. You had to, once you got your own car- despite it’s rusted exterior and coughing protests every time you turned the key in the ignition. 

 

It’s just a car. It shouldn’t feel this strange to sit in the driver's seat, the scent of leather, gasoline, and something unidentifiable- spicy and sharp, a habitual ghost in the air. You realize, you recognize the scent of it because that’s what Ronan always smells like. It makes you feel dirty all of a sudden, to think of wrapping your hands around the gearshift or the steering wheel, in your grease-stained coveralls after work, even though he tossed you the keys and told you to meet him at church. You look at your hands- the engine grease on your knuckles, the crescent of dirt under your nails that you’ve tried so hard to get rid of. They look out of place against the smooth, expensive leather interior of the bmw. 

 

The freckles on your skin remind you of the splattered mud that used to accumulate on the trailer where you lived. They remind you of what you, are, where you came from. You remember the empty bottles and broken glass crowded around the rickety front steps, and how they felt commonplace because that’s all you’d ever known. You don’t know if you really want to drive this car. You take a deep breath, letting the sick feeling wash over you. And then, you start to take it apart. You think,  _ I am not the monster blood I was born with _ . You think,  _ I am not dust, or dirt, or the word ‘worthless’ spit over and over again from an angry mouth _ . You think,  _ I am not my father's son _ . 

 

You live in a drafty room above a church with a slanted ceiling. You ace all your tests. You balance what little free time you have between friends, homework, and tramping through the morning-damp virginia countryside, searching for magic. At night when you come home Ronan is often lingering in your doorway, claiming he wants help on the latin homework, despite the fact that he’s top of the class, or that he’s bored and Chainsaw, his pet raven, isn’t company enough for him. You always indulge him with an eyeroll and a sigh, unlocking the creaky door and ushering him in. The lock is weak, and you know that if he tried to jimmy the door he could get in without you. You know he won’t try. You know the only reason he shows up like this is because he wants to see you. 

 

You don’t know how to tell him that you want to see him, too, and it reminds you, again, of the car you’re sitting in. 

 

It means something, for him to have lent you this car. It holds the weight of a thousand stolen glances that make you thrill with the knowledge that this is something more. It makes you nervous. It makes you wired, and infinitely careful of the way you return his gaze. You exhale again, push down the clutch, and turn the key in the ignition. The engine, well cared for under your attentive eye ( because Ronan doesn’t trust anyone else at the garage with it) hums to gentle life. You are not fooled by this. You know how fast it can go, have been in the passenger seat as the BMW tore down the highway. 

 

Then, after all this, it is easier than you expected to make the shift into first gear, rev the engine, and drive away. You don’t feel small, as you expected to feel. You don’t feel strange. If anything, you feel right, driving this car. Powerful and at ease, hands around the steering wheel, eyes on the road. You only wish, that for once, it was Ronan in the passenger seat. 

**Author's Note:**

> fic title stolen from 400 lux by lorde
> 
> i wrote this for my english class the other day (bc apparently my teacher is chill with fanfiction, nice) and since i haven't updated flowers slipping from your hands in awhile (i'm working on it though), i thought it might be nice to post it here even though it's so short. thanks to my readers for putting up with me, and if you're new- thanks for reading at all <3


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